A recent billing issue with my beloved Fido had me briefly looking into the possibility of replacing my hiptop with Canada’s own smartphone success story, the CrackBerry. Both my brothers and one of my sisters-in-law have one, and after thumbing around on them and doing a bit of research I think I’m able to speak with some authority on the subject…
I’ll cut to the chase here: Business-types love their Blackberries because of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server software that comes with it. For as little as $5000 CAD, up to twenty users can enjoy the same wireless syncing of calendar, contacts and email that my hiptop gives me for free.
Regular self-employed schmucks like myself must settle for the BlackBerry Internet Service, which gives you an “@bell/rogers/telus.blackberry.net” email address and a smartphone without a camera or MP3 player that you have sync manually with your computer just like anything else. Woo.
Oh, and the only unlimited BB data plan that I can find in Canada costs $60/month and isn’t really unlimited!
Andrew Currie 